Spanishax said:
SilkySkyKitten said:
Admittedly, I used to be proud to be a part of the Brony community, since during its early days it genuinely seemed to be the friendliest and genuinely nicest community I've ever been a part of. Sadly, those days are long gone, and the MLP fandom is just... well, another fandom with its fair share of fan-dumb. Maybe a tad more than most, arguably.
"Long gone"? I haven't noticed much of a difference. With the increase in the Brony community, the formerly rare douches, trolls, and cloppers-who-are-WAY-too-vocal-about-their-fetish have become a bit more than "rare" of late, but for the most part all I see is charities, conventions, all forms of art with varying levels of skill, and good ol' fashioned loving and tolerating.
Is there perhaps a facet I'm missing? Or is it just the increase in size and the "riff-raff" said increase entails that bothers you?
While I won't pretend I know much about the brony community in particular, I've been in other fandoms long enough to know, that it's probably likely a size and controversy issue. As any community gets larger and lasts longer the chances of a major community blowup approaches 100%, and subsequent blowups always happen if the community gets larger from there. I've seen the same crap happen again and again, with fandom after fandom, even before the internet got popular this kind of thing tended to happen as a greater number of fans gather around a popular property or community.
Avatar, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Pokemon, X-Files, Star Trek, and Star Wars. It all starts out the same way, small groups of people get together to geek out over something they love. They organize and become more complex over time. These small communities have their weirdoes but with low numbers it's easier to drown out 1 or 2 crazies. You also get the people convinced that they are starting a movement or that there is something super special awesome about this one community that makes it soooo much more awesome and they convince themselves that it's going to stay that way no matter how much their preferred piece of fiction gains in popularity. They think their fandom is going to be the exception and always remain with that closeness and tranquility that exists in much smaller communities
Some Star Trek and Star Wars fans were convinced in the early 80's their respective shows would be at the head of a revitalized space race, and a cultural renaissance of sci-fi shows and fiction (It didn't and the resurgance of sci-fi popularity wouldn't hit until the 90's and even then it petered out by the mid 2000's). Star Trek fans in particular, there were some that thought the shows optimistic futurism would spark a cultural revolution (it didn't). Furries thought their fandom would be a rock of solidarity in the early to mid 90's that would produce it's own shows, games and media, and would eventually be accepted as a valid alternative lifestyle ala rockers, punks, and hippies years ago (their still a cohesive fandom but not a fraction as relevant as they thought they would be). Some Harry Potter fans thought the series would spark a rennaissance of children's fiction (most of what we got were bad rip-offs involved kids finding out they had magic powers).
I could go on all night, but to sum it up, there's an idealism and naivete that exists in small fandoms and communities, they always think they are going to be the exception to the rule, that their fandom will rise above petty squabbles, drama, and the inevitable death threats that get sent to someone for something stupidly trivial. From what I know I imagine there are a group of bronies that are disillusioned that "love and tolerance" didn't somehow manage to stop every single person in the community from being the occasional douchenozzle.
Of course I'm not going to speak for the guy you quoted, his reasons may have nothing to do with anything I just said, but there's always this same complaint the person you quoted has, with every community throughout the last 20 years I've spent in various communities online and off. THat sentiment of, "I thought it was going to be different, back when it all started everything was great, everybody was so nice and supportive, but its changed now".
